Unionization of minor leagues could have huge ramifications for baseball

Sep. 8—What once seemed unthinkable now appears all but inevitable.

Last week the Major League Baseball Players Association sent shockwaves through the baseball industry when it announced it was starting a campaign to unionize the minor leagues and would be adding staff members from the non-profit Advocates for Minor Leaguers group to help spearhead those efforts. Its first step was to send out authorization cards to minor league players, who could then sign the cards to indicate whether or not they'd be interested in joining a union, and if at least 30% indicated support then further steps could be taken.

Now less than two weeks later, the MLBPA has announced that more than half of all minor leaguers have already returned signed cards and that it has formally asked MLB to recognize the MLBPA as the minor leaguers' collective bargaining representatives.

"Minor league players have made it unmistakably clear they want the MLBPA to represent them and are ready to begin collective bargaining in order to positively affect the upcoming season," said MLBPA executive director Tony Clark.

That news was followed shortly by another announcement that the MLBPA will be formally affiliating with the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions which represents more than 12 million workers nationwide, and that the two will work together to organize the minor leagues.

Taken together these steps represent a massive push towards a potentially transformative change for the sport. While the developments don't guarantee a minor league players union will ultimately materialize, it's clear baseball is now closer to that reality than at any point over the past century.

What comes next?

With a majority of minor league players in support and with the backing of their major league brethren, the next step will be for MLB to recognize the minor leaguers as part of the MLBPA.

The simplest way for that to happen would be for MLB to voluntarily recognize the union. If it does not, then the MLBPA would likely file for an election through the National Labor Relations Board. In order to win the election, more than half of all votes cast would need to be in favor of unionizing, a threshold the MLBPA believes it can comfortably clear even if some players wind up changing their mind.

Should the election succeed, minor leaguers would become a new bargaining unit under the MLBPA umbrella and could then negotiate their own collective bargaining agreement. That deal would be separate from the CBA that the league and players reached after a 99-day lockout this past offseason and would cover the more than 5,000 players who compete at Triple-A all the way down to the Complex League level and potentially could bargain for the Dominican Summer League as well.

Why does this matter?

Historically minor league players have had little to no say over their working conditions, with MLB largely dictating their salaries and contract structures while denying players benefits and protections enjoyed by their big league peers.

Players at the lowest levels of the minor leagues earn $400 per week and up to $700 at Triple-A — equating to between $5,000 to $14,000 per season — which actually represents a modest improvement from a couple of years ago when salaries ranged from $290 to $500 per week and players were also on the hook for their housing costs.

Even with those raises most players still don't earn a living wage, and because players are also only paid during the season, most have to work second jobs during the offseason to make ends meet.

Having the ability to collectively bargain could allow players to address that and other longstanding issues like reserve rules, due process proceedings related to discipline, offseason obligations, health and safety concerns, intellectual property rights and more.

Why is this happening now?

The unionization drive comes amid an unprecedented surge in labor enthusiasm surrounding the minor leagues that dates back more than a decade but has picked up steam since 2020.

That year minor leaguers absorbed a huge one-two punch. First the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 season, and then that December MLB restructured the minor leagues, resulting in the contraction of 42 clubs and hundreds of lost jobs.

Those events, plus the subsequent formation of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers, brought a lot of new attention to the treatment of minor leaguers. The increased public pressure played a role in MLB agreeing to raise minor league salaries, mandate higher standards for club facilities and allowing clubs to pay players for their time during spring training, which came after the league also agreed to settle a 2014 federal class action lawsuit that will award minor league players $185 million in unpaid minimum wage and overtime payments.

MLB also faces unprecedented Congressional scrutiny of the league's century-old antitrust exemption, which has allowed MLB monopolistic control over the minor leagues.

That leverage is one of the main reasons why minor leaguers haven't unionized in the past, as doing so potentially could have led to players being blackballed, ending any chance of them achieving their big league dreams.

But now it appears a critical mass has been achieved and in the coming weeks and months the long-farfetched idea of a minor league players union could become a reality.

Email: mcerullo@northofboston.com. Twitter: @MacCerullo.